NAMM I Am

I’ll be there for the duration, partly to hang out with my Pure Guitar pals, and partly to meet with Fishman about the upcoming TriplePlay release. But mostly to gawp at the weird shit admire the musical instrument industry’s latest offerings. :oogle:

I’ll be posting my findings here, and also doing a little write-up for my friends at Create Digital Music, one of my fave musician sites.

Actually, I have this perverse fantasy of spending an entire show in Hall E: the Anaheim Convention Center’s low-rent basement/dungeon, a dark, inhospitable region where Fender and Gibson fear to tread. That’s where the industry leaders of tomorrow rub elbows with mad scientists and perennial laughingstocks (AKA “my peeps”).

Any of you guys going? And if not, anything special you’re curious about?

10 comments to NAMM I Am

I went to a few NAMM shows some 20 years ago when I had an music related job.

I remember looking at a demonstration of audio hard disk recording synchronized with MIDI in one application and thinking “that’s impossible”. And I recall seeing one of the first Line 6 modelling amps and thinking “that’s impossible”.

While I realize that we have the accumulated knowledge and power of humanity in our mobile phones these days, I’d still like to think that somebody’s working on the impossible. Let us know if you see anything that is clearly not possible.

I went to summer NAMM in 97. I know what you mean about the low rent dungeon. Some of the coolest stuff was there. My two favorite things was watching the “no name guys” who could play better than some of the heroes and the jams in the bars around town that we got invited to. Some of those nights were mind blowing and humbling. I’m hoping that MXR releases the FET driver. And I’ve heard that Marshall is going to introduce a AFD 5 Watt combo. Which, if it isn’t over priced, might be a cool lunchbox.

In the last couple of years some of my favorite stories and ‘tubes coming out of NAMM have been from the weird frontiers of the modular synth builders, a tribe vaguely related to the small time effects builders and full of mad scientists. Buchla, the cream of the crop, is allegedly introducing something interesting this week.

Even if I could go to NAMM, I don’t think I’d want to – all the noise and crowds would be a nightmare for a shy, reclusive creature like me. I’m quite happy waiting for the news to roll in second-hand. Mostly, I like reading about synthesizers (DIY kits and Eurorack modules in particular) and weird effects pedals these days, though I always like seeing guitar makers do distinctive and stylish things.

I don’t expect I’ll ever darken those doors, but if you could do a good ‘weirdo roundup’ of all the off-the-beaten track types, I would be forever grateful.
Have fun! I figure there’s a good chunk of the populace there who will have just picked their jaw off the floor after watching the Bartok video; take care of that right hand, you’ll be shaking a few paws this weekend! 😉

Never been, even though I’ve been in proximity a few years at various points.

Joe, if you stop by the Magnatone booth, please ask them if they’re making replacement parts available for the vibrato circuits in the vintage amps. I’m hoping they’re having the unobtanium stuff made anew.